Covid woes: US woman takes up part-up job at nursing home to be closer to father

The 58-year-old from Minnesota, who works fulltime as a project manager for a printing company, joined as a custodian -- mopping and cleaning floors, and scraping off food from plates.

The nursing home said they have struggled to fill such positions and was glad when the woman reached out. (Source: KARE/ YouTube)

There’s been a great amount of pain across the world due to the tough restrictions put in place to ensure the safety of the elderly during the coronavirus pandemic. Several families spent months apart, and many people were denied the opportunity to meet their loved ones as nursing homes stopped family visits to keep residents safe from the infection.

Here’s a story of a woman in the United States who took up a part-time job at one such facility just to be close to her father. Lisa Racine picked up a job at the Good Samaritan Society where her father, Harold, 87, was residing. The 58-year-old from Minnesota, who works fulltime as a project manager for a printing company, joined as a custodian — mopping and cleaning floors, and scraping off food from plates.

According to a CNN report, she began her second job on December 1, and now works two or three nights a week helping with the “supper shift”. She admitted that the work is hard, but it’s worth it because she gets to spend extra time with him. “I usually arrive a few minutes early and I go check on my dad and then when I’m done serving dinner, I check on him again,” Racine told CNN. “At the end of my shift, then I go in his room and I visit with him and it could be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, hour-and-a-half, depending on how he’s feeling.”

Story continues below this ad

Racine told TODAY that she was worried about his health and the impacts of isolation on him in such trying times. “Just the thought of him getting Covid and possibly dying without anybody around him that loved him — I was panicking inside,” she told the news outlet.

Seeing his daughter inside the centre, the elderly man was shocked but delighted at the same time. “I was shocked, really,” he told KARE. “I was kind of dumbfounded. ‘How did you get in?'”

“I can’t believe they pay me for this,” she told the local channel. “I could take a yoga class or go to happy hour, but I’d rather come and mop the floor and clean dishes so I can see my dad… He’s cleaned up plenty of messes after me in the past,” the woman added.

Thanks to her new job profile, Racine also received her Covid-19 vaccination along with her father at the facility.